This must be how old people felt when the Polio vaccine came out. Or when a killer whale feels when it eats it’s trainer. Freedom!

I can’t believe he’s finally out of here. Who’s going to sign a 41-year-old Shawn Bradley next year or draft a toaster? Who’s going to chase our only superstar away? Who’s going to slowly apply lotion to his hands while watching reruns of Silver Spoons. That last one was speculation.

They didn’t even fire him, they just didn’t renew his contract. That’s some straight-up middle-school “I’m not even going to call her because it’s easier to just stand her up at the food court” style break-up. Okay, I only had one girlfriend in middle school and she dumped me, but I know how it feels and David Kahn is going to be crying in his Hypercolor t-shirt tonight.

But now that he’s gone, he’s got to do something with his life, right? What’s next in the career of a failed lawyer, sports writer and NBA executive? Here’s a few suggestions:

President of the Animal Planet Puppy Bowl: “Um, David, you can’t play turtles in the puppy bowl. They’re not even cute.”

Darko Milicic entourage member: “Hey Darko, can I borrow some manna from heaven? I haven’t eaten today. Do we have to live in Serbia?”

Renaissance Festival dork:He should actually do this. Ren Festers are as confused about history as Kahn is about basketball. He’d fit right in. Are Ren Festers the David Kahn of life or is David Kahn the Ren Fest of basketball?

Soak it in, Timberwolves fans. This asinine, infuriating, brain-melting shit-pocket of a season is the best record we’ve ever had without Kevin Garnett. We’ve been a team since 1989, when Hypercolor and Milli Vanilli were popular. We are a sad, cursed bunch.

Our core group of Kevin Love, Ricky Rubio and Nikola Pekovic played a total of 13 minutes together this season. That’s a real stat. The drum solo in “In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida” is longer than that. That’s not even mentioning the injuries to Chase Budinger, Brandon Roy, Malcolm Lee and Andrei Kirilenko. And still we won 31 games.

There’s so many questions about next year that I don’t even want to open myself up for the disappointment. Will Kevin Love be 100%? Will Rick Adelman return as head coach? Will David Kahn be fired and if so will he be replaced by Jesse Ventura? Can we move to the East already, so we can lose 85% of our games and still make the playoffs. Fuck you, Milwaukee. You’re Chicago’s gimpy, dirty cousin and nobody likes you. You’re where people go when they’ve been run out of town but still have meth to sell. You’re the North Vegas of the Midwest. You smell like cabbage. I hope Miami wins by 150 while watching re-runs of “Laverne & Shirley” because that’s how easy it is to beat you.

By sheer probability and statistics, we have to be good again sooner or later, right? They say that if a monkey types on a typewriter infinitely that it’ll eventually produce the complete works of Shakespeare. I don’t know what’s scarier, this immortal, ADHD monkey or the fact that chimpanzee King Lear will probably exist before the headline “NBA Champions – The Minnesota Timberwolves” does.

I love the Minnesota Timberwolves. I will continue to support them rain or shine. Here’s my Timberwolves wishlist for the summer:

1) Be healthy.

2) Draft a player who doesn’t suck.

3) Fire people who are stupid.

4) Re-sign Pekovic.

5) Meet Prince and steal his high heels.

6) Find more Russians. They don’t hate snow.

7) Remove all walls, fridges and anything punchable from Kevin Love’s apartment. Preferable: House him in a sponge bubble.

8) Erect a statue of Pooh Richardson and Tony Campbell holding hands.

9) Sign Dwight Howard.

10) Inject Dwight Howard with PCP-laced heroin and leave him at Hazeldon with a note saying “I do bath-salts if nobody punches me in the balls.”

Thanks for reading this season. I’ll post when things of interest happen this off-season, but otherwise see you next year. Go Wolves!

I don’t think I have to tell you how much I hate the Los Angeles Lakers, because I already have.

And we have a chance to completely ruin their season. The Lakers and the Utah Jazz are in a dogfight for the last spot in the Western Conference playoffs. There’s only about a half dozen games left in the season and every single one counts. And lo and behold, guess who plays the Jazz TWICE before the season’s out? Your very own Minnesota Timberwolves.

I love that Minnesotans are honest and hard-working people. I love that we pride ethics in our lives. But the Minnesota Timberwolves are not from Minnesota. Luke Ridnour’s from Oregon, Ricky Rubio’s from Spain, Kevin Love was born at sea on Dennis Wilson’s house boat and Nikola Pekovic was born and raised on the Berlin Wall, I think. And therefore, I say fuck it! Let’s throw these damn games.

What’s the worst that could happen? The 1919 White Sox purposely lost the World Series for money and what happened to them? I think they got banned for life or something, but they made it onto the Field Of Dreams! And that’s all anybody really remembers or cares about. Does anybody remember Shoeless Joe Jackson’s nemesis, Pointy-Boots LaRue? No, they don’t. They remember the famous cheater who hung out with Kevin Costner.

No playoffs for you this year, Lakers! Because if it’s one thing the Timberwolves are good at, it’s losing. I want to see Lakers fans jumping ship like it’s the Titanic. And the last three people on board are Kobe, Dwight and Nash playing their stupid million dollar violins. Kobe will turn to those two and say “Gentlemen, it’s been an honor playing with you this season. And when I say honor, I mean it was the worst. God, you guys suck.”

We created you guys. The Lakers used to be the Minneapolis Lakers. There’s no lakes in California, just black tar heroin pits and stripper glitter reservoirs. You stole our team. And now 50 years later we’re repaying the debt by ruining your season. Greg Steimsma will be starting at point guard in both games against Utah. JJ Barea will be playing center. A sad and lonely Christian Laettner will be coming out of retirement and starting at PF. We’re going down, Los Angeles. And there’s nothing you can do about it.

Rick Adelman won his 1,000th game as an NBA head coach this past Saturday. The only other coaches with more wins are Don Nelson, Lenny Wilkens, Jerry Sloan, Pat Riley, Phil Jackson, Larry Brown and George Karl. Don Nelson just stuck around that long because he was drunk for most of it. Phil Jackson’s never had a single player who wasn’t a Hall Of Famer. None of those guys had to coach human mistake Darko Milicic. Adelman is the best.

1,000 wins is incredible. I haven’t done anything in my life 1,000 times. Except eat. And sleep. And go to the bathroom. Correction: I haven’t done anything 1,000 times that a squirrel can’t do. (I let squirrels use my bathroom. It’s adorable.)

If you went back in time a year for every game that Rick Adelman won it’d be 1013 AD. According to Wikipedia, that year Henry II, Holy Roman Emperor, signed a peace treaty at Merseburg with Duke Bolesław I Chrobry of Poland who recognized him as overlord. I don’t know what any of that means, but they had overlords back then. That shit’s scary. I think you have to have a chainsaw attached to your stub and possibly the head of a horse to be an overlord. That’s a lot of wins!

Rick Adelman keeps getting older and the players stay the same age. Photo from eltiradormelancolico.blogspot.com

Rick Adelman’s been around a long time in a league where coaches generally have the staying power of Kwame Brown. He’s earned his spot as one of the greatest coaches of all time. We’ve actually had a couple free agents sign with us ON PURPOSE, despite our poor geographic PR, just because he’s so renowned. It doesn’t matter that he looks like he’s going to start manufacturing meth in the basement of a New Mexico laundromat at any moment. The dude gets people to play hard every game. So much so, in fact, that we earned him his 1,000th win at a time when we should be purposely tanking to get a better draft pick. I’m sick of saying “Next year,” but hopefully with a fully returned squad (and a healthy Mrs. Adelman), we’ll be able to Rick win 1,015 by the end of 2015.

With eight games left in the season, I figured now was as good of time as any to cart out the end of the season grades for the Minnesota Timberwolves. Maybe someday I’ll be doing these in June? Right. Maybe someday I’ll be the Princess of Wales too? I keep leaving glass slippers everywhere, but I live downtown so people keep smoking crack out of them.

What qualifies me to judge and grade professional basketball players on their skill when I averaged 0.01 minutes a game on my high school team? Well, I’m crazy. I punched a guy in the face at the Y during a pick-up game at noon when I was 34. (I use that reasoning for everything.)

In alphabetical order:

JJ Barea: B-

A lot of people hate JJ, but I love his spark and his super hot wife. He’s a 4’5″ man who thinks he’s 7’6″. Obviously, Freaky Friday happened for real. Somewhere there’s a Manute Bol looking motherfucker who thinks he’s a horse jockey.

Chase Budinger: B-

Would have gotten an A-, except that he was spotted at the House of Comedy in Bloomington, MN, at a Steve-O show. I performed stand-up there only weeks later and I never saw Chase’s Jared-Leto-from-Fight-Club head there the whole time. B-!

Dante Cunningham: B+

Dante gets a B+ just for not having any kind of significant injury.

Mickael Gelabale & Chris Johnson: TBD

Like your grandpa’s new fling at the nursing home, you just want to see if they’ll survive before you invest yourself emotionally.

Andrei Kirilenko: A-

I love Kirilenko because he doesn’t seem human. His body is all boxy and ragged corners, like when the Muppets put on a trenchcoat and pretended to be one big human. Combine that, Drago from Rocky IV and a scarecrow and you have the most consistent player on the Wolves this year.

Malcolm Lee: N/A

It’s been so long since he played that I actually forgot who he was or what he did.

Kevin Love: D-

For music nerds: Kevin Love’s season was supposed to be “Smile” and ended up being “Smiley Smile.”

For Game of Thrones nerds: Kevin Love’s season was supposed to be Tyrion Lannister but ended up being Joffrey Baratheon.

For Mike Brody nerds: Kevin Love’s season was supposed to be how Mike Brody views himself, but ended up being how Mike Brody really is.

Nikola Pekovic: A+

I blocked a guy on Facebook once for talking shit about Pekovic’s tattoo. That’s all you need to know. Greatest. Ever.

Luke Ridnour: C+

Not good or bad. Like a day old doughnut. Just there.

Brandon Roy: F

Oscar Pistorius’ legs are more real than yours. Time to quit, Brandon.

Ricky Rubio: A

“Change this face. Be Happy. Enjoy!” When Ricky’s done being our last true hope, he can retire and record soundbites for Mario Brothers games. “Itsa ME! RICKY!”

Alexey Shved: B-

Alexey’s first half of the season was great and the second half sucked. So, the prototypical Timberwolf.

Greg Steimsma: C

Steamer’s greatest accomplishment this year.

Derrick Williams: C

If the Timberwolves are having a garage sale this summer then Derrick Williams is the vibrator hidden in the box of batteries. Somebody might have wanted it new, but good luck getting anything for it now.